In this article we will begin a fascinating and eye-opening twelve-part series on aspects of human consciousness related to aging and old age, death and the afterlife, the soul and oversoul, reincarnation and cycles of reincarnation.
Again, in Cosmic Core we focus on the esoteric stream of knowledge that is being brought to light in our modern times. This stream of knowledge acknowledges the truth of reincarnation, the afterlife, and spiritual evolution of the soul. It does not deny the validity of science or religion. It acknowledges that all religions speak truth and offer paths towards truth and the evolution of the soul and the Infinite, yet each religion also contains certain dogmas that need to be discarded so the people of the planet can move forward in unity, worshiping with any religion they so choose, yet knowing that there is no one single ‘correct’ religion.
The paths are many, the truth is One.
Let us move forward together towards the goal of truth, not arguing about names and dogmas, but praising the divinity of life and working towards a world of peace, truth, unity, freedom and prosperity for all.
Youth and Aging
“Your body has within it the miraculous strength and creative energy with which it was born.
You most probably take this to mean that I am implying the possibility of an unending state of youth. While youth can be physically prolonged far beyond its present duration, that is not what I am saying.
Physically, your body must follow the nature into which you were born, and in that context the cycle of youth and age is highly important.
The body itself is always in a state of becoming.
You think of it as reaching a certain peak and then deteriorating, or becoming less. That is because you do not understand it as the expression of your being in flesh.
It reflects the seasons of the earth and of the flesh.
In what you think of as youth, it mirrors one condition with great faithfulness and abandon.
In old age it does the same thing.
It shows you in flesh, both as you come into it and leave it, and here you see great variation.
Many cease creating their bodies and die at a young age for a great variety of reasons, but some die because they believe that old age is shameful and that only a young body can be beautiful.
Many believe that old age is a time of spiritual and/or physical deterioration, an era in which all those hard-won attributes of maturity vanish, and the reasoning faculties disappear like grains of sand held too long by the thinking hands of the mind.
If life is seen as good in this system of belief, then youth is viewed as the crowning glory, from which summit there is no further journey except descent.
The old are not granted characteristics of wisdom, but feared as evil, bad, undesirable or frightening.
To these people senility seems a natural, inevitable end to life.
Many who follow such beliefs try to hide them from themselves, desperately attempting to be young.
Youth and old age both have their place, and within the framework of humanity each play important roles.”1
Your Beliefs about Age will Affect Your Body
“Your beliefs about age will affect your body and all of its capacities.
To believe in your own weakness is to deny yourself the power of action.
If you believe that after a certain time of life hearing will fade, then so it will.
You will begin to use the faculty less and less, unconsciously transfer your attention to the other senses to compensate, and rely less and less upon your ears until the functions themselves do atrophy.
Functions in this particular regard are habits.
You simply forget how to hear properly, following your belief.
All of the minute manipulations necessary to hearing are unconsciously repressed.
The actual physical deterioration then does indeed follow.
The deterioration however does not occur first, but after.
Parallel with the belief that hearing will dim, you may have the belief that vision will fail, and these two ideas may be reinforced by a belief that age automatically makes you less a person, turning you into an individual who can no longer relate in the daily pattern of environment.
The belief, you see, would work to insure the materialization of that state.
On the other hand you may believe that wisdom grows with age, that self-understanding brings a peace of mind not earlier known, that the keen mind is actually far better able to assess the environment, and that the physical senses are much more appreciative of all stimuli.
And so those conditions will be physically met in your experience. The physical apparatus itself, following your beliefs, will continue in health.”2
Aging and the Expansion of Consciousness & “Senility”
“There are specific functions brought into operation quite naturally that are scarcely perceived by scientists, much less understood.
As the mind within the body clearly sees its earthly time coming to an end, mental and psychic accelerations take place.
These are in many ways like adolescent experiences in their great bursts of creative activity, with the resulting formation of questions, and the preparation for a completely new kind of personality growth and fulfillment.
This would be quite apparent were it not for the current belief systems, through which the old are forced to interpret their experience.
Many instances of expansion of consciousness, and mental and psychic growth, are interpreted as senility.
No important correlations have been made between the subjective experience of the old, particularly in the “senile” conditions, with those of other ages involved in expansion of consciousness, whether natural or drug induced.
Any such sensations are immediately repressed by the old for fear that “senility” will be the diagnosis.
The experiences, however affect the right hemisphere of the brain and in such a way that abilities are released in somewhat the same manner as an adolescent’s.
The individual, when it is time, begins to see beyond temporal life, to open up dimensions of awareness that he or she could not afford while involved in the intense physical focus of normal adult life.
Unfortunately the personality has no system of beliefs as a rule, to support such an expansion.
The natural therapies, both physical and mental are denied.
Drugs are often used as depressants, clouding the clarity of what seems to be distorted vision.
Old animals have their own dignity, and so should old men and women.”3
The Epidemic of Senility
“Senility is a mental and physical epidemic — a needless one.
You “catch” it because when you are young you believe that old people cannot perform.
There are no inoculations against beliefs, so when young people with such beliefs grow old they become ‘victims’.”4
Aging and the Faulty Belief in Failing Health
“The ‘flu season’ is in a way an example of a psychologically-manufactured pattern that can at times bring about a manufactured epidemic.
Behind such announcements there is the authority of the medical profession, and the very authority of your systems of communication as well.
You cannot question the voice over the radio. It is disembodied and presumes to know.
Once again, the elderly were singled out.
It seems obvious that they are more susceptible to diseases. That susceptibility is a medical fact of life.
It is a fact, however, without a basic foundation in the truth of man’s biological reality.
It is a fact brought about through suggestion.
The doctors see the bodily results, which are quite definite, and then those results are taken as evidence.
In a few isolated areas of the world even today, the old are not disease ridden, nor do their vital signs weaken.
They remain quite healthy until the time of death.
Their belief systems, therefore, you must admit, are quite practical.
Nor are they surrounded by medical professions.”5
“Visions” and Creativity in Old Age
“This is one of the most creative, valuable aspects of your lives.
Instead the old are made to feel useless in society.
Often of course they share this value judgment and their experience within our communities has in no way prepared them to face subjective experience.
There are no teachers to guide them.
Old age is a highly creative part of living.
The connections between it and childhood are often made in a derogatory fashion, but the personality is in just as creative a state.
Even the chemical and hormonal changes that occur are those that are conducive to spiritual and psychic growth at that time.
The joyful affirmation possible is denied to the old because of society’s system of beliefs.
At any age a revelatory episode is difficult to relate to others.
In older age, however, no one is interested, and yet it is here, as in adolescence, that the greatest creativity may emerge but go unrecognized.
This era could be more advantageous to the individual and to humanity than any other period, were it recognized for what it is and understood.
The peculiar chemical changes that occur are often precisely those that lead to greater conceptions and experience, but these are free from what you think of as practical application.
There is a trigger set off, an impetus in which the personality tries to free itself from time-space orientation released from the usual necessity to participate in “adult” terms.
In their natural progression, and left alone, the old understand their own “visions” quite well. Body and mind operate beautifully together.”6
Do Not Fear Aging
“Your beliefs about age, like everything else, will form your experience, and your mass beliefs will affect civilization.
With the current concepts held by society, men and women fear old age from the time of youth.
If young adulthood is considered the epitome of life, blessedness, and success, then old age is viewed as the opposite – a time of failure and decay.
Some of this has to do with distorted ideas of both the conscious and unconscious minds.”7
The Conscious Mind, Adulthood & Aging
“Generally speaking, in Western society the conscious mind is seen as coming into its own in early adulthood, as the self rises from the bed of childhood unconsciousness into its critical awareness and differentiation.
The appreciation of distinctions and differences is considered one of the greatest characteristics of consciousness, and so those aspects of it are valued.
On the other hand the equally significant assimilating, combining, correlating characteristics of consciousness are overlooked.
In scholarly circles, and many that are not scholarly at all, the intellect is equated only with the critical faculties, so that the more diagnostic you are the more intellectual you are considered.
During Western years of adulthood, consciousness is focused most intently in one specific area of activity and physical manipulation.
From childhood, the mind is trained to use its argumentative, separating qualities above all others.
Creativity is allowed to flow only through certain highly limited, accepted channels.
When an individual becomes older – and retired, for example – the focus for that particular kind of concentration is no longer so immediately available.
The mind actually becomes more itself, freer to use more of its abilities, allowed to stray from restricted areas, to assimilate, acknowledge and create.
Precisely at this time the individual is told to beware of any such straying, and to consider that kind of behavior a symptom of mental deterioration.
Those following mass beliefs will find that their own image of themselves has changed.
They fear that their very age, or existence in time, had betrayed them.
They see themselves as leftovers, dim vestiges of better selves, and in their own system of value judgment they condemn themselves through the very fact of their continued existence in time.
If they ever did, they no longer trust the integrity of their bodies.
They begin to act out the drama in a script written by others – to which, however, they have acquiesced.”8
Retirement
“Ideas of retirement fall generally into a similar pattern, for hidden within them is the belief that at one time or another, at a specific age, your powers will begin to fail.
These ideas are usually accepted by young and old alike.
In believing them, the young automatically begin the gradual conditioning of their own bodies and minds. The results will be reaped.
In a society such as this, given over so thoroughly to the pursuit of money, such beliefs bring about the most humiliating situations, especially for the male, who has often been told to equate his virility with his earning power.
It is easy then to understand that when his capacity to earn is taken away he feels castrated.”9
Aging and Sexual Beliefs
“If a young adult believes that sex is good but old age is bad, then he or she will find it impossible to consider exuberant sexuality as a portion of an older person’s experience.”10
Forget the Number of Your Years
“In many “native” cultures an individual is not considered in terms of age at all, and the numbering of years is regarded as insignificant.
In fact, a person may not know their age as you think of it.
It would do you all good – young, middle-aged and old alike – to forget the number of your years, because in this culture so many beliefs are limiting in those ways.
Youth is denied its wisdom and old age is denied its joy.”11
- Roberts, Jane, The Nature of Personal Reality, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1974
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